Belief: an acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof.
Late one night in a small Alabama
cemetery, Vance Vanders had a run-in with the local witch doctor, who wafted a
bottle of unpleasant-smelling liquid in front of his face, and told him he was
about to die and that no one could save him. Back home, Vanders took to his bed
and began to deteriorate. Some weeks later, emaciated and near death, he was
admitted to the local hospital, where doctors were unable to find a cause for
his symptoms or slow his decline. Only then did his wife tell one of the
doctors, Drayton Doherty, of the hex. Doherty thought long and hard. The next
morning, he called Vanders’s family to his bedside. He told them that the
previous night he had lured the witch doctor back to the cemetery, where he had
choked him against a tree until he explained how the curse worked. The medicine
man had, he said, rubbed lizard eggs into Vanders’s stomach, which had hatched
inside his body. One reptile remained, which was eating Vanders from the inside
out. Doherty then summoned a nurse who had, by prior arrangement, filled a
large syringe with a powerful emetic (a substance which induces vomiting). With
great ceremony, he inspected the instrument and injected its contents into
Vanders’s arm. A few minutes later, Vanders began to gag and vomit uncontrollably.
In the midst of it all, unnoticed by everyone in the room, Doherty produced his
pièce de résistance—a green lizard he had stashed in his black bag. “Look what
has come out of you Vance,” he cried. “The voodoo curse is lifted.” Vanders did
a double take, lurched backwards to the head of the bed, then drifted into a
deep sleep. When he woke the next day, he was alert and ravenous. He quickly
regained his strength and was discharged a week later.
Frank Lloyd Wright said:
“The thing always happens that
you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen.”
Unfortunately, people believe
what they want to believe and base decisions and experiences on these beliefs,
no matter how warped it may be.
We joined a church group that
preached the grace and love of God, around 1996. We went because a friend of
Danie told him about all the amazing miracles that were taking place – proof
that Christ was indeed in their midst. I must admit that we were completely
mesmerized by this silver-tongue preacher who was so on fire. His powerful
sermons and personality were so contagious that we had to stay.
Danie and this preacher clicked
and very soon he was on his way to becoming a preacher himself. Being taught by
such an awesome man of God was like sitting at the feet of the Master himself.
His preacher and teacher was
invited to be the main speaker at a Pentecostal gathering where the people were
invited to bring the sick, the deaf and the cripple for healing. Danie
obviously went with as part of his training, but more so to be in the awesome
presence of God during a service like this. There must have been a few thousand
people jam-packed into the church building and the anticipation was electric.
The sermon that was preached in preparation for what would follow was entitled:
Doubt makes God’s healing powerless.
What a powerful message. The call
was made and the people started filing to the front to receive what they had
come for – healing. It was then that the thought suddenly struck Danie: “But I
am also sick.”
***
He had been diagnosed as a Type 1
diabetic at the age of ten after cutting an electric cable in complete
disobedience to his father. They were living on a small farm at the time and his
father farmed with strawberries and citrus. Danie and his brother had both
received remote control speedboats for Christmas, but Danie was not satisfied
with the speed of his boat. All he needed was a little piece of electric cable
to rectify the problem, but his father said to wait until he could help him
find some. Danie went into the storage room and saw a piece of loose cable (or
so he thought) hanging out of the switchboard. He took a pair of pliers and
cut. Being an old farm house, the trip switch did not work automatically and
the electricity held him fast. He was unable to let go. His father noticed the
flickering lights and instantly knew what the problem was (strange how parents
know these things). He stormed into the storage room and knocked Danie over in
order to separate him from the electric current. Immediately he started wetting
the bed at night, had a constant, unquenchable thirst and always felt tired. A
week later he was hospitalized and diagnosed with diabetes, the beginning of his lifelong sentence.
***
Danie had no problem making a decision that night at the service. He decided then and there that he was going to receive healing as well. Having sat in the front row he simply stood up. How effective a healing of this magnitude in his own life would be in future ministry. If he no longer needed to use insulin, he would be physically capable of many more things and to top it all he would draw thousands of people to Christ because of his own testimony. He was so excited and thought he would literally burst out of his own skin.
Every single person who was
touched by this silver-tongue preacher received the same instructions: “In the
name of Jesus, be healed! Do not doubt. You have received it.”
There was praising and singing
and shouting and crying as every person received their gift, fell over in the spirit, then returned to
their seats. The meeting ended with the following verse from the writer of
Hebrews: Now faith is the substance of
things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. “Don’t believe the devil’s
lie”, said the preacher, “God does not do half a job.”
On returning home later that
afternoon Danie was bubbling over. He shared the events of the morning with me,
telling me that he had been completely healed and had felt the hand of God
reach inside him and heal his pancreas. For three days he refused to use any
medication despite the obvious symptoms, but by the end of the third day he could
barely see four feet in front of him and his tongue was dry and swollen in his
mouth. He gave clear instructions, that even if it cost him his life, he would
not inject any insulin. It would be an absolute sign of doubt, and he believed.
God was testing his faith and would not disappoint him.
Danie awoke from a very deep
sleep a many hours later. Whether he had been in a coma was hard to say, but
one thing he knew, something was different. He started to weep bitterly knowing
that I, in my love and concern for him, had given him an insulin shot, saving his
life. The disappointment almost stole his will to live. Had he not believed?
Had he not felt the hand of God? What was wrong with him? The pastor’s response
to his questioning? “Sometimes God uses broken vessels to draw water.” Shortly
hereafter Danie received his pastoral certificate.
A few months later this silver-tongue
preacher ran off with the head deacon’s wife. Amazing, isn’t it?
Danie was invited by a large
coloured Pentecostal denomination to do a series of sermons over an Easter
weekend in 2007. Five sermons, starting on the Friday morning and ending on the
Sunday morning. We took on the sixteen-hundred-kilometer journey by car to
reach our destination on the Wednesday morning, and then still have some time
for Danie to rest and prepare for the meetings.
We were warmly received by the
people in this coloured community. There were many people and the church was
filled to the brim. The band played lively music and the people sang and
clapped their hands enthusiastically. Danie was well prepared for the meetings
and encouraged by the spontaneous, joyous crowd.
His attention was suddenly drawn
to some movement on the floor and was shocked to see that it was a young man in
his early twenties sailing down the aisle using only his arms, dragging his
crippled legs behind him. He moved quickly to the front of the church and took
his place as the tambourine player in the band.
Without a moment’s hesitation and
under the inspiration of the holy spirit, Danie walked over to Steven
and told him that he wanted to pray for him. He prayed fervently as the music,
now more subdued, continued to flow, and asked God to touch the crippled body
of Steven and make him whole. He lifted
Steven off the floor and held him in his arms for several minutes as he
continued to pray for his healing. It
felt like an eternity, and then slowly he lowered Steven to the floor.
At that moment Danie felt that he
had two choices – run or preach. So, he preached and, in his sermon, apologized
to Steven, reassuring him that he was loved. Danie felt like he had run ahead
of God for the umpteenth time in his life, despite believing that he did it with
God’s guidance. He preached his five sermons with fervor, looking into the
friendly face of Steven every time.
No amount of faith and belief was
able to put strength and mobility back into the cripple body of Steven and the
question remains: Why? Why do only some people receive healing (if it is indeed genuine), and what makes them more special than the next person? The most common answer is - a lack of faith?? ...
After this weekend of preaching,
a family member on Danie’s side asked him to come pray for their dying father.
On entering the humble home, one could sense death in the air. Danie went to
the man’s side and spent several minutes talking to him and then praying for
him. After some time, the man turned to Danie and told him about a curse which
had been cast over his life (just to let you understand, this man was a devout
Christian). He pointed to a small clay pot outside his garden gate and said
that a witchdoctor had placed it there, after an unpleasant incident between
them, and it couldn’t be removed. Immediately and without hesitation, Danie
went outside, picked up the offensive object and headed to the witchdoctor’s
hut, which was a short distance down the dusty road. Using the full force of
his body, Danie threw the vile object against the man’s hut, causing it to
shatter into pieces and strewing red dust against the wall.
Very early, the next morning, as
we were packing to take the long trip back home, Danie received a phone call
from the man. He was crying and laughing at the same time, bubbling over about
his healing and that he was able to walk around for the first time in weeks. He
recovered completely.
I read the following line in one
of Seth Godin’s blogs: “Many things that are true, are true
because you believe them”.
Makes a lot of sense.
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